


Somethin' real, Somethin' right

by sunnysideup



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Don't worry its not a sad fic just sort of introspective, M/M, fluff sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-19 17:59:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17006451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunnysideup/pseuds/sunnysideup
Summary: But it’s more than that.  So much more that to think about it even for a moment causes Zayn’s breath to hitch in his chest.Sometimes he wonders if he’ll ever breathe normally again.





	Somethin' real, Somethin' right

**Author's Note:**

> Maybe the start of a little series, there are some other songs I'd love to write about from Icarus Falls but I'm so out of practice, rusty and nervous to write again that we'll see about that and I may just pretend this never happened! 
> 
> Anyway, any errors etc., are down to me. Thank you for reading if you do. xx

Zayn shuts his eyes, laid down on the bed while he waits.  

Till he no longer hears the shower on the other side of the door, and he sits up, wanting to turn the light on but he doesn’t.

The door opens and Liam hasn’t yet turned off the bathroom light so for just a moment Zayn sees his face, feels the familiar ache and has to stop himself from sighing aloud because that’s not helpful. 

He waits, even though he needs this as much as Liam does.  Needs him so much it’s a different kind of longing altogether. 

There’s enough light from the city outside the hotel room that once Liam turns the light off, Zayn watches as Liam takes a couple of steps towards the mirror, his back away from Zayn, his posture not as upright as normal.

His shoulders slumped.   

“He’s just tired.”

That’s what they’d say.  And they’d be right, too many months, no, make that too many years of touring and no fucking wonder they’re all tired, they’re all a few nights, bad nights and sleepless ones away from breaking.  

But it’s more than that.  So much more that to think about it even for a moment causes Zayn’s breath to hitch in his chest.  

Sometimes he wonders if he’ll ever breathe normally again.  

Then Liam turns away from the mirror, shoulders still slumped, the city lights showing just enough of his eyes that Zayn knows he’s been crying.

Zayn doesn’t say a word, what comes next is as normal to them as waking up together and getting the bus or train together would be for a couple in London on their morning commute.

Liam’s beside him before he can even blink, he smells of the shower gel that the hotel provides for free, he smells faintly of cigarettes too.  

He smells like comfort, and Zayn hopes that somehow he’s the same too. 

They lie in silence, silence except for the occasional sniffs from Liam that slowly change to the sound of Liam’s breathing slowing down before Liam’s hand is on Zayn’s chest and he feels him move closer till Liam’s lying on his side and Zayn lifts up an arm to pull him in.

A moment later and Liam’s head is resting on Zayn’s chest over his heart and his hand shifts to rest on the other side of Zayn’s chest as though he’s hugging him. 

Maybe he is.  

Liam’s fingers run tiny circles on Zayn’s chest, to begin with until they stop and Zayn thinks maybe Liam’s fallen asleep. 

Wonders if he’ll be able to do the same.  Till then he stares out the window.

“S’funny, no matter how shit I feel, just need to lie like this and I feel better, just hearing your heartbeat, I don’t need anything else.”

Zayn doesn’t reply.  

“Except for this tour to finish and to have one day to not feel like I’ll lose my mind if this goes on for much longer that is.”

Zayn bites at his lip to stop the urge to suggest the impossible and instead he turns his head away from the window and back to Liam who’s shifted his head to look at Zayn weighing up whether he’s said too much.

They’ve always managed to speak with just a glance and the half-smiles on their faces speak of the fact that it’s impossible and they know it. 

For now at least.   Only trouble is that now seems like it’s going to last forever. 

“Doesn't hurt to dream every so often though right?” 

It doesn't at all and Zayn smiles cause they do this every so often.  It helps somehow or another. On ordinary bad days that is.  

Sometimes Zayn wonders what it’d be like to do all this on his own. To have just four other young men alongside him but to just be mates and not have this. It wasn’t meant to be this time, but maybe somewhere there’s a Zayn and a Liam that are just mates, where that’s all they’ll ever be.  

It’s not something he can wrap his head around. Maybe it's kind of uncomplicated. Zayn thinks he doesn't like the sound of uncomplicated if it meant that life would be lived without what he and Liam have, even just lying together on a bed like now.

Then again he can't wrap his head around this life sometimes either. 

Most people must think twenty-one-year-old men like Zayn touring around the world would be spending time in bed with another person doing much more besides just lying together.

Most people don’t know shit.  And they’re lucky they don’t. 

They aren’t lucky to not know Liam though.   They aren’t lucky to not feel something like this.  

He knows that tonight,  _every night_  Liam thinks the same of him.  Tonight it was just Zayn’s turn to remind Liam of just how beautiful he is inside and out. 

Tomorrow or someday soon, it’ll be Liam soothing him before Zayn tries to scrub away the worst thoughts and the insecurities. 

And so it goes on.  Not always, because sometimes this life is fucking fantastic with no sarcasm intended. Seeing the world with 3 brothers and the man you know this universe intended you to find this way?

Pinched skin in the early days of the two of them was the testament to how unreal it had felt.

Now?  There’s nothing more normal than him and Liam being together, nothing more natural and _right._

But it’s the fact that while it took a while to get to this, now they’re here, it’s like they’ve never been apart, it’s the fact that while they’re only just into their twenties, it’s like they've known this forever. 

And there are moments, nights, weeks even when they need, more than just being next to each other, but then there’s days and days when this is the only thing that helps.

Because anything else is too much because sometimes Zayn feels like he’s done a hundred marathons and that hitch in his breath will take him down unless he has just this.

What he’s got right now, what he’s got when he looks downwards and Liam’s looking back up at him and there’s a smile on his face that’s more certain and Zayn nods as Liam raises his eyebrows upwards and then he's leaping away from Zayn towards the light which he turns on and his bag where he pulls out the notebooks and pens cause sometimes days like today which turn into nights, make that early morning, like tonight make you could feel like you can write forever. 

It’s as normal for them as right next to you, listening to Drake and Usher on a tour bus traveling across America and as normal as twister ice cream which your other half excitedly tweets to the world about which proves the point.

Normal to them, the height of domestication and the equivalent of doing your Saturday shop together down the supermarket but for others they may as well be walking the moon. 

Uncommon.  How they'll stay. 


End file.
